Balkans syndrome has Europe running scared

AM Archive - Wednesday, 10 January , 2001 00:00:00

Reporter: michael brissenden

COMPERE: NATO ambassadors will meet today to discuss an alarming increase in cancer among soldiers who served in the Balkans.

More than 40 cases of leukemia have been reported, resulting in 11 deaths.

Britain has offered its servicemen free screening; the German government could be facing legal action; and Italy is calling for a full-scale inquiry.

But as Europe correspondent Michael Brissenden reports, NATO says there's still no proof there is such a thing as 'Balkan syndrome'.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: European governments are running scared. Suddenly peacekeeping seems to have been more dangerous from their soldiers than they may have thought. Balkan syndrome is become a Europe-wide crisis, whether it's real or not.

And the medical evidence, as NATO spokesmen like Mark Laity keep reminding everyone, suggests that there is no conclusive link with the alarming rise in cancer rates seen in Balkans' veterans and the use of depleted uranium in the ammunition fired in Bosnia and Kosovo.

NATO SPOKESMAN: The consistent and overwhelming medical consensus is that the health risks from depleted uranium are low e very low, and only specific to very certain circumstances. If there's specific circumstances, then there can be some hazards from depleted uranium, but there's not a general health hazard.

The overall health risk is very low, especially in the case of radiation. That's the existing consensus. You wouldn't expect NATO to have used these weapons in combat if it thought that they were dangerous to their own armed forces after the event.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: But the alliance is under growing pressure to act. NATO ambassadors will meet in Brussels to discuss the matter later today, and it's clear they'll have to do something. So far there have been more than 40 recorded cases of cancer among young veterans. The hardest hit have been the Italians, where six soldiers have died from leukemia; five have died in Belgium; and cases have also been reported in Portugal, France, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Greece, Spain and the UK.

Depleted uranium is used in armour piercing weapons. It's not considered dangerous in its solid state, but on impact it turns to vapour and dust, and medical specialists believe its these fragments of dust that cause the problem. The British government also supports the NATO view that there's no proof of any link. But in a significant u-turn, the junior Defence Minister John Spellar announced in the Commons that Britain had now decided to offer all of its servicemen free medical tests.

JOHN SPELLAR: We do recognise that there are concerns among our people, and we recognise a need to reassure them. We take very seriously our responsibility to our service personnel, given the demands we make on them during operations.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: In Germany the parents of one soldier who died of meningitis are considering legal action against the Defence Minister.

Clearly legal action on a wider scale over Balkan syndrome is also likely. The German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer is already on the defensive:

JOSCHKA FISCHER: [Translated] We clearly need facts. But the national German position is we didn't want these weapons; we didn't want to deploy them.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: But they were used, and the Portuguese government has sent a special team of investigators to Kosovo as part of a wider effort to see what if any lasting impact there may be on the ground. The soldiers might have problems, but concern is also growing for the health of the civilians who now have to live alongside the military debris and the radioactive fallout.